


in the face of all that we've lost

by undieshogun



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Established Relationship, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6631408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undieshogun/pseuds/undieshogun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>we persist because we've not yet lost each other</p><p>Takumi recognises a haunted man when he sees one, but he can't afford to lose Leo like the way he once lost himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the face of all that we've lost

**Author's Note:**

> first step to publishing a depressing thing: make the title as cheesy and impossible to understand as you can 
> 
> MAJOR spoilers for the entirety of Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright. beware!! 
> 
> this story was based loosely off this piece: https://twitter.com/starseraph/status/720467294833520640 by twitter use @starseraph. gave me the idea for ambassador takumi, and everything just kind of spiraled from there.

Castle Krakenburg is one of the greatest feats of architecture Takumi has ever witnessed. Anyone with at least a preliminary background in war strategy can tell from first glance that its multi-story, ringed structure was designed to make it near impregnable. The tall, smooth walls are impossible to scale, and the single entrance is sealed with a massive steel gate that can only be controlled from within the castle. Any who attempt to infiltrate the castle from the underground end up dead in the center of the army's training grounds, and are lucky if they can survive having to fight their way out of being surrounded by thousands of Nohrian troops.

That last bit Takumi knows from experience.

He also knows his way to the throne room from the front entrance, but still waits for a servant to come meet him after he has been let in through the steel gate.

The inside of the castle is always dark, even now after the previously ever-present grey clouds in Nohr's sky have long receded, and the sun shines brightly overhead even during short winter days like today. The curtains are always drawn over the tall windows that line the walls, and there is a sharp, horrid chill that drifts through the halls of the castle. It is the type of chill that seeps right through his clothes, creeping under his skin like it's trying to freeze his blood right in his veins. It is always there, haunting every corner of every room, like a ghost that will never be laid to rest. Sometimes Takumi wonders if it is something alive, but he never dares ask.

He also wonders if it is the chill that makes everyone inside the castle so quiet, as if they are all too busy trying to still their chattering teeth to talk. Today, it seems even more quiet than usual--or perhaps just emptier. Several soldiers stand guard by the gate, but Takumi hasn't seen anyone else pass by in the five minutes that he's been waiting. They're usually faster about this. The longer he has to spend here alone, the more uncomfortable he gets. Not enemy territory, he has to remind himself. Just not home, either. 

The Fujin Yumi, hanging across his back now, is a source of great comfort and strength in battle, but offers little protection against the draft. He shivers a little, but refrains from wrapping his arms around himself. No one else is doing it. 

"Prince Takumi."

Takumi looks up and is surprised to see a familiar face. "Oh. You're..."

"Forgotten me already, Your Highness?"

If it isn't the mess of wavy white hair and the eyepatch that brings his name back to the surface, it must be the smug, unrestrained grin. "Of course not. Niles, it's been a while."

Niles inclines his head. "I hope you've been doing well, Prince Takumi." He gestures towards the hallway leading to the throne room. "Shall we?"

Takumi lets Niles lead the way. "No one really calls me that anymore. 'Prince,' I mean."

"Oh?"

"It's...Ambassador Takumi, now. I--I mean, you don't really have to...you can just call me by my name if that's easier for you," says Takumi.

Niles glances back towards him, expression unreadable, then nods. "Ambassador Takumi, then."

Takumi feels his face heat up a little. In all honestly, this sort of stiff formality tends to embarrass him. He clears his throat. "So, is it just me or does it seem like you guys are a little, erm, understaffed at the moment?"

"Ah, you've noticed." Niles gestures vaguely. "The king had all of the servants fired a while ago. All that's left is the soldiers."

Takumi's eyes widen. "What...?"

"There was an attempt on his life a while ago that involved one of the servants," says Niles. He speaks with the same airy tone he adopted at the start of their conversation, but Takumi doesn't miss the way his expression darkens briefly before he turns back around. "He wanted to fire all of the soldiers as well, but I managed to convince him that that would only leave him vulnerable to future attacks."

"Wait, what? Why would anyone attempt to take the king's life?" says Takumi, struggling to keep up with what he is hearing. "Why weren't we contacted about this?"

Niles stops and turns around, forcing Takumi to stop as well.

"Ambassador Takumi," Niles says, and his smile is colder than the air that raises the hairs on the back of Takumi's neck. "Our countries may be allies, but that doesn't mean we're obligated to share every little detail of our happenings with each other. Don't you agree?"

"But--something like this--"

Before Takumi can continue, Niles turns away and resumes walking. "Are all Hoshidans so prone to needless worrying? You should know by now that our king can take care of himself."

"I wasn't trying to say..." Takumi sighs and gives up when he realises that Niles has no intention of continuing the conversation.

They round the corner, and it isn't until Takumi realises he doesn't recognise where they are that he notices-- "This isn't the way to the throne room."

"The king isn't seeing any visitors right now. You'll be meeting with the council tomorrow for whatever business it is you came to do," says Niles. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like, of course."

Takumi frowns, but otherwise tries not to let his annoyance show. "When can I see the king?"

"Like I said," Niles replies with the utmost patience. "He's not seeing any visitors."

They stop in front of an ornate set of double oak doors that Takumi has never seen before. He's not terribly surprised--they give him a different room every time. He's been told that it's for security's sake, but he's fairly certain they just tend to forget where he stayed during previous visits.

"Thanks," he mutters.

Niles bows with a dramatic flourish that was probably intended to entertain Takumi (or offend him), then retreats wordlessly down the hall and into the shadows.

Without bothering to so much as glance into the room, Takumi turns and begins walking in the opposite direction Niles left, back down the way they came.

He is unfamiliar with this part of the castle, but years spent studying maps for vantage points in battle have blessed him with a keen visual memory, and he has no problem backtracking through the path Niles led him through until he finds himself at the entrance to the ball room.

From here, he knows the way well enough that his feet carry him almost automatically. He doesn't go to the throne room. If the king isn't seeing visitors, then he'll be in his personal chambers.

There are no guards posted at the door, but anyone who knows the king should know that isn't a sign of invitation. It is subtle, but Takumi spots the dull gleam of magic runes against the carpet in front of the door, as well as on the walls on either side of it. Takumi has seen this magic enough times, both from across the battlefield and from at the king’s side, to know that anyone who tries to enter without permission is in for an extremely painful surprise.

Takumi lifts a hand and knocks firmly on the door.

"Leave," is the near-immediate reply from inside. The king's voice is so faint Takumi wonders when the last time he spoke to another person was.

"It's me," Takumi calls.

This time, there is the slightest of pauses before the king replies again. "I don't want to be disturbed."

Takumi sighs. _Always so dramatic, as usual._ "I'm coming in," is the only warning he gives before he turns the brass handle on the door, ignoring the magic runes.

(No magic cast by the king will ever hurt him; it was a promise made to him by the king himself, so many years ago now that it feels like a lifetime.)

The king is seated at a large mahogany desk set near a tall, narrow window in the back of the room. The curtains are pulled despite the fact that it’s only sometime in the early afternoon, and the only light in the room comes from a small gas oil lamp sitting at the edge of the desk. The flame inside the lamp sputters sporadically, giving Takumi the impression that it might go out at any time.

The king pays it no mind, head bent over the desk as he scratches away at a piece of parchment paper with a ragged quill. He doesn't even look up as Takumi closes the door behind him.

"Please, leave me be. I'm busy."

Wordlessly, Takumi places the Fujin Yumi against the wall near the door. He then begins picking his way across the room, stepping over the piles of clothes and armor and books strewn all over the floor. A heavy, musty smell lingers in the room, and Takumi doesn't have it in him to imagine how long it's been since the king last left this room or let anyone else inside. The only thing in the room that isn't an absolute mess is the bed. The luxurious satin sheets are meticulously spread, undisturbed, and laid over a pair of thick, round pillows.

The king doesn't look up from his work until Takumi is standing almost directly above him, knees brushing against the armrest of the plush, high-backed chair he sits in.

Takumi almost doesn't recognise him. _It's been nearly two years since we last saw each other_ , he reminds himself.

Or maybe it's the way the king's thin blonde hair, which he used to attend to so meticulously every morning, now curls around the edges of his face, matted and knotted from neglect; or the way his cheeks have sunken underneath his high cheekbones to create frighteningly sharp angles against his too-pale complexion; or perhaps, Takumi thinks with a sinking stomach, it is the way his dark eyes--once so piercing and bright with keen intellect that seeing them shine as he cast the most intricate and complex of magical spells was like watching the stars twinkle against the canvas of the night sky--are now dull with fatigue-induced apathy, even as he meets Takumi's gaze.

Takumi's hand quivers as he raises it slowly towards the king's face, but he stops short when a muscle in the king’s jaw twitches, as if he means to protest.

"Leo," he breathes. It is a name he should know well. It is on his mind every day, whether they are together or apart. Yet somehow, it feels foreign as it leaves his lips now. "Gods, what's happened to you?"

King Leo of Nohr blinks up slowly at him. "What are you doing here?" He glances over to the door, brow furrowed as if he isn't sure how Takumi got inside.

"I'm--here to see you," says Takumi. "You fired all of your servants and you're not seeing anyone. What the hell happened?"

Leo looks back down to the parchment he was scribbling on, and Takumi follows his gaze. It appears to be a bill of some sort, though the print is too small and intricately scripted in formal Nohrian for Takumi to read properly. Leo has been writing notes in unsteady, loopy handwriting along the margins of the paper.

Leo's desk is littered with bills and other documents in much the same state, covered in notes or signed with a shaky hand at the bottom. Takumi also notices a fair amount of torn parchment scattered on the floor around the table.

"Leo," Takumi prompts again when he notices that Leo is staring blankly at the bill, hand clenched around the quill but unmoving.

"I don’t have time to entertain any visitors at the moment.”

"What? This isn’t just a courtesy call," says Takumi. "There was an attempt on your life, and you didn't even tell me? When did it happen? Did they hurt you?"

"Does it look like they hurt me?" Leo snaps with a sudden burst of aggressive energy that has Takumi taking a startled step back.

Takumi tries to say something, anything--even a snarky retort will do, if it will stir at least some sign that the Leo he knew is still in there--but he takes in the deep bruises under his eyes, so dark they almost seem unnatural, and the way his cape hangs like a tarp over his bony shoulders, engulfing his body in a swathe of midnight blue like the night itself is devouring him, and Takumi realises he has no idea how to respond.

Something _is_ hurting Leo, eating at him from the inside--it _must_ be, from the way it makes him hunch over in his seat as if he is in pain even as they speak. It must be scraping away at his insides, hollowing him out, or else how could his eyes have come to be so empty when it was not so long ago that they held entire galaxies within them?

Takumi wants to try again, to insist that Leo talk to him, let him help...but Leo is already looking back down at his document, dipping his quill into the ink bottle as if to continue working, though his grip on the quill is so tight Takumi doubts he would be able to write so much as a single word without snapping the tip.

Takumi swallows and finally admits to himself what he has been unwilling to believe since he stepped into the room.

He knows this. He knows the paranoia, the dark circles under Leo's eyes and the way he clenches his fist under the desk so hard that his knuckles turn white; he knows the anger, bottomless and barely contained like it's all he is made of, and the exhaustion being the only thing holding him back from taking it out on something (or someone); and he knows the tension in Leo's jaw, can hear the way he's grinding his teeth, using the noise to drown out his own thoughts.

Nobody knows the symptoms of a disease better than one who has been afflicted with it himself. Takumi recognises a haunted man when he sees one.

Takumi has never admitted this to anyone and he never will, not even to Leo, but the Silent Dragon's hold on him did not break all at once, as it had appeared to that day he'd wrenched himself from its grasp. As the war came to a close, during the months afterwards...even now, there are times when he wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of voices in his ear, telling him to do things he could never dream of doing.

(And yet he has done them before, he's sure, though he will never remember and those he has hurt will never tell.)

They would come during the day, too. In the middle of battle, trying to convince him that his allies were the enemy, or on the quiet days, when there was nothing to distract him from the whispers in the air telling him that he was nothing, unloved and unwanted by all the people around him.

Yet it was the voices that he could handle; he had been fighting those voices long before he ever fell into the Silent Dragon’s grasp.

It was the images that always left him petrified, chest tight like they'd stolen his breath as well as his mind. They always came when he was tired, dancing at the edges of his vision. Some days he would be afraid to sleep, for fear that they would follow him into his dreams. And it was when he hadn't slept for days, delirious with fatigue and paranoia, that they truly took shape--visions of allies and enemies alike, rendered true to their forms by his own traitorous memory.

It's been months since his last vision, but he still remembers what it's like, the terror and the guilt all at once closing his world in on him until there's nothing else he can see. Seeing Leo like this now is like looking into a mirror.

Takumi swallows dryly.

"You don't think I'm really here, do you?" he says softly.

Leo's hand twitches. He still hasn't written a single word. Without looking up, he huffs out a laugh. "I've had this conversation more times than I can count."

The despair in Leo's voice bleeds out into the air around him, lying heavy in the space between them like a miasma.

"Leo, look at me," says Takumi. "You know it's me."

"Leave me alone, ghost," Leo murmurs, and when he looks up and their eyes meet, his expression is twisted into something Takumi has never seen before, something sharper than fear etched into the worry lines in his forehead that weren't there the last time they saw each other.

Takumi opens his mouth to _swear_ up and down that he is real--but nothing comes out because he knows that that is all Leo will hear anyway. Instead, he reaches out towards him, breaching the space between them, and places his hand on Leo's shoulder.

Leo reacts instantly, throwing him off with a startled snarl and leaping from his chair with such force that it topples over, landing on the floor with a heavy _thud_ that makes them both jolt.

For a second, they both stand there, the tension freezing them in place.

Leo shakes his head slowly, eyes wide. "You-you're just a...they're not supposed to..."

Slowly, Takumi holds his hand out in silent invitation.

Leo's hand twitches, as if he wants to take it, but then he turns his head away with a pained expression. "They say that accepting a spirit's hand is the quickest way to becoming one of them."

Despite himself, Takumi gives Leo an incredulous look. "So I'm a spirit now. Is that supposed to be an improvement?"

Takumi watches as Leo exhales, shoulders sagging as his back curves into a hunch utterly unbecoming of the person he used to be. He looks so small.

Takumi lowers his hand.

The still air in the room is suffocating, thick in his chest on every inhale, and he wonders if Leo would even be able to breathe properly if he went outside. Would the light air, natural air fill his lungs too fast for him to expel it in time? Would he burst?

The silence between them wraps itself tight around Takumi’s skull, making his blood rush in his ears, head spinning.

Then, Leo steps forward and pulls Takumi into an embrace.

Takumi stiffens, eyes widening as he scrabbles for a response.

"I don't care what you are, or if you're even real," says Leo softly, desperation tinging the tremble in his voice. "Just let me have this."

Leo's hands are cold against his back, even through the thick cotton fabric of his shirt. The ridges of his dark knight's armor dig painfully into Takumi's chest, and Takumi can feel his own heartbeat pounding against it as if to push it away. Instead, he wraps his arms around Leo and, after hesitating for a split second, rests his head on his shoulder.

Leo used to smell like earl grey tea in the mornings, fresh and light and elegant like the way he carried himself, back straight and eyes sharp; like cinders and fresh bark after battle, full of life and unabashed in his ferocity, teeth bared and skin flushed.

Now, all Takumi smells is dust and the sharp steel of his armor.

Nothing about Leo is familiar to him anymore. And yet...

"I missed you," Takumi breathes, almost more to himself than to Leo.

Leo hears him anyway, and clenches his hands briefly in Takumi's shirt before pulling away until they're facing each other, noses nearly touching. Slowly, as if he's afraid of frightening Takumi, he raises his hand and cups Takumi's cheek.

Takumi can't help but flinch at the shock of cold contact, but he doesn't move away. Leo barely even notices, gaze fixed so intensely on Takumi it makes his ears burn.

"You're really here. I'm not just imagining you." For the first time, true, lucid recognition flashes in Leo's eyes.

Relief swells in Takumi's chest, washing out of him in a huff of laughter. "That's what I've been trying to say this entire time, genius."

"Takumi." The name falls from Leo's lips like water off a sheer cliff, heavy and broken and loud enough to fill the entire room even as a whisper, and all at once Leo's eyes well up with tears, face crumpling.

Takumi surges forward and kisses him, hand moving up to grasp the front of his cloak.

Leo gasps against his mouth, lips quivering and cheeks wet, and Takumi kisses him again, breathing into him all of the affection and longing he has been unable to express for the past two years.

"Takumi," Leo says again, breath shuddering out of him like it refuses to leave him. He presses his forehead to Takumi's and closes his eyes, tears beaded in his pale eyelashes.

Takumi brushes his thumb over Leo’s cheeks, wiping them dry to the best of his ability without pulling away. "I'm here," he says softly, and thinks somewhere in the back of his head that it would have been nice to have someone to be there for him, too, on those nights he woke up from one nightmare only to find himself stuck in another.

 _Fix this_ , he tells himself. _He doesn’t deserve to go through what you did._

Takumi kisses him again, a gentle press of his lips on Leo’s cheek, and lingers there for a moment before pulling away.

Leo's eyes flutter open, gaze bright with yet unshed tears and maybe just a scattering of those stars Takumi has missed so much during their time apart. Leo's eyes will always be the night sky Takumi sees on the evenings he spends staring up at his ceiling, too busy counting the days when they can meet again to sleep.

Seeing them now, Takumi can finally relax and know that he has the real Leo, _his_ Leo back, and if the red rimming and the near-black bruises add a rather bittersweet tinge to the whole thing, it's nothing he can't swallow down anyway. War tends to accustom one's palette to the bittersweet, and there are few who know it as well as the two of them.

Takumi takes Leo's hand and leads him over to the bed, where they sit down across from each other. He brushes some of Leo's hair out of his face, pausing to smile at him gently, and is delighted when Leo manages to return it with a weak, crooked smile of his own.

Leo's smile falters quickly, however. "I'm happy to see you, but...what exactly are you doing here?" he says.

Takumi raises his eyebrows. "Wow, you have been really out of it. Do you even know what day it is?"

Leo's brow furrows, and Takumi watches his eyes go briefly out of focus from the effort of retrieving his memory.

Feeling bad, Takumi backtracks. "It's the winter solstice, Leo. I'm here for the council meeting. I'm the ambassador for Hoshido now, remember?"

"N-no, I...I know you're the..." Leo trails off, tips of his ears dusted pink in embarrassment.

"You need some rest," says Takumi. "You haven't slept in days."

"I can't," says Leo, glancing over towards his desk. "I have too much work to do."

Takumi scowls, but reins in his frustration. "Look, I don't know what's been going on lately, but I'm going to the meeting tomorrow and we'll figure it out together, okay? I just need you to get better for now. For me."

Leo shakes his head. "They won't tell you anything. Those people...no."

Takumi hesitates. He recalls the lack of all the servants in the castle, and the fact that it was Niles alone, Leo's most trusted retainer, who had met Takumi when he'd first arrived.

"You don't trust anyone in this castle, do you?" says Takumi, and Leo flinches, expression darkening briefly with guilt.

"I understand," Takumi says quickly. "This is...this is hard on you. I can't even imagine the stress you're going through right now. I won't talk to anyone tomorrow, but I'll stay, okay? I'm going to help you figure this all out."

"No, you don't get it. You..." Leo purses his lips and averts his eyes for a moment. "You need to leave, as soon as possible."

Takumi's heart sinks into his stomach. "What? How can you expect me to just leave you while you're like this? I...I thought you would at least be happy to see me."

"I _am_ happy to see you! You have no idea how long every day has been without you." Leo brushes his palm against Takumi's cheek and his jaw, curls his hand around the back of his neck as if to re-familiarise himself with the feeling of this warm, tender contact.

Takumi leans into the touch, feels Leo's skin warm against his and revels in it. "So let me stay."

Leo's hand twitches, but he doesn't pull it away. He looks down, his expression pinched tight. "Takumi...There was an attempt on my life three weeks ago. One of my servants tried to slit my throat while I was sleeping."

Takumi's mouth goes dry. "What...?"

"I managed to escape unscathed; Niles was there to stop the assailant before they could hurt me," says Leo.

"Why didn't you write to let me know?" Takumi demands before he can stop himself. Something hot flashes in his bones, seeps through his flesh, dances along his skin and tinges his vision with red. He hasn't felt this sort of rage in a long time. "Where is that servant?"

"I executed him personally," says Leo, eyes hard. For a moment, he almost looks completely like his old self. "The point is that it wasn't just some random assassination. I know I've been making enemies ever since I started my rule, but when I looked into this..."

At this point, it doesn't take long for Takumi to make the connection. "You think you've been betrayed?"

"The servant had connections with at least two members of the current council, and a good several more of the previous members," says Leo. "Takumi, this could be the start of a civil war in Nohr."

Takumi's stomach turns. War is something he knows. Fighting against strangers, taking lives for the sake of his country, he wouldn’t hesitate to lift his bow.

But fighting against his own people?

"This will undo everything we fought for all those years ago," he says, voice barely audible.

"I have to find the proof I need to indict these council members," says Leo. "But no one can know I'm doing it, or else the entire country will descend into chaos. Now do you see why I couldn't risk letting you know? The message could have been intercepted."

"So you just let me sit at home instead, safe and free of worry, while you lived every day crippled by fear and paranoia."

"This is the only way I know how to end this peacefully!" Leo’s throat protests against the volume of his outburst, rendering his voice ragged and shrill. With visible effort, he takes a moment to even out his breath. "I...Xander would have found a better way. Camilla...even Elise would have known better. But this is the best I can do."

Takumi hesitates at the mention of Leo's siblings. "Leo, that's not what I meant."

Leo suddenly shivers violently, as if some draft only he can feel has blown past, and he pulls away from Takumi to wrap his arms around himself. Takumi, feeling a little cold himself from the loss of contact, reaches forward to put his hands on Leo's shoulders, holding him steady, grounding him.

"I'm here," he says, more firmly now than he did the first time.

Leo grimaces. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm a mess, I-I'm losing my mind. You don't deserve this from me."

"I know. I know you are," says Takumi. Gently, he nudges Leo's legs out of the way and closes the distance between them to pull him into a tight hug. "I'll bring you back."

Leo clutches at Takumi, squeezing him so tight Takumi has to stop himself from choking on the next breath he takes. "They talk to me every day. Even when I close my eyes, I can feel them there and hear them whispering into my ears."

"You're talking about your siblings."

Leo nods against Takumi's shoulder. "They look like them, like Xander and Elise. Even Camilla. I haven't seen her--the real her--in months. I don't know where she went or if she's even alive and I--"

Takumi rubs gentle circles against Leo's back. "It's okay. I’m sure you’ll see her again."

Leo lets out a small, choked groan. "The--the things they say--"

"It's not right. It's not them," Takumi says gently, though he isn't sure just how reassuring that is.

It's not real, Takumi used to tell himself, as if he was actually in his right mind to know at the time. The phrase _seeing is believing_ has never been so true, and so cruel.

"Sometimes I see you, too," says Leo. "On the days when I miss you the most, there you are."

"Leo..."

"Sometimes you just stand there," Leo continues. "Others times, you...you say terrible things. You say you never truly forgave me for all the terrible things my family and I have done to your country--"

"Leo, that's not me." Takumi hates the way his voice shakes. Of course there was a point in their lives where Takumi was certain that he would not find peace until he had taken Leo's life with his own hands--and that he would be glad doing it. Now, holding Leo in his arms and feeling his heart ache for him, he knows he would give his own life if it meant saving Leo’s.

"I know," says Leo. "I _know_ none of it is real and I know what's happening--I just...I'm..."

 _I'm scared_ , Takumi used to whimper to himself in the face of the worst of the visions, clutching his arms together, boxed into an invisible cage by his own delusions.

Takumi pulls away and undoes the clasp on Leo's cloak, lifting it from his shoulders and setting it aside.

"What are you--?"

"You're going to get some much-needed sleep," says Takumi, moving on to take off his armor.

Leo grasps Takumi's wrist, eyes going wide. "Don't--I need my armor in case--"

"You're safe, Leo," Takumi says, gently pulling himself out of Leo's grasp. "I'll protect you, I promise."

Leo's armor is heavy--heavier than any of the thick leather pads Takumi wears under his archer’s furs. Just his chest plate takes a great amount of effort and control for Takumi not to drop onto the ground as he sets it aside, but the way Leo seems to sit up just a little straighter with every piece removed makes the task easier for Takumi in the end.

"Gods, where do you find the strength to lug this stuff around all day?" murmurs Takumi. He's teasing, but he knows that paranoia lends its own special type of strength, though it isn't always worth what it costs.

Leo has always been rather thin, but he never let anyone assume that that meant he was fragile. Even when they were enemies, Takumi knew that he was far more dangerous than he appeared, and Leo was never shy about it. Leo knew what he was made of, knew of the steel he carried in his blood and the storm he carried in the palms of his hands.

But now, when he notices Takumi staring at him, at his skin pulled taut over his bones underneath the armor, limbs so brittle they look like they might break at even the slightest pressure...Leo curls in on himself, shame burning high on his cheeks as he lowers his gaze.

"I'm pathetic, aren't I?" says Leo. "I'm supposed to be the king and here I am, cowering in my chambers, hiding from my own people."

"You're tired," says Takumi. "And you've been through so much. Leo, I'm so sorry I wasn't here."

Leo shakes his head softly. "You're here now. I thought I could do this alone, but...I need you, so thank you for coming. And staying."

Without thinking, Takumi says, "You would have been there for me.”

Leo frowns and looks up, eyes searching. "For you...? What are you saying?"

Takumi hesitates.

He trusts Leo. They trust each other with their lives. And Takumi knows that if he tells Leo now, about the months--the _years_ he has spent being tormented by the spectre of a long-dead dragon with no one there to pull him back every time he fell into the deepest, blackest parts of his own mind...he knows that Leo would only be able to apologise for not being there.

Perhaps Leo does owe Takumi an apology. Perhaps everyone who was by his side all this time and never noticed how he was suffering does.

But all Takumi really wants right now is for Leo to know that he isn't alone, and to know that Takumi is going to make things right.

So Takumi simply smiles and says, "It's okay. Everything's okay now."

He coaxes Leo onto his back, and though Leo still looks somewhat troubled by his remark, he offers little protest as his head sinks onto the plush pillow and his eyelids start drooping almost immediately. Weakly, he takes hold of Takumi's wrist.

"You'll stay, won't you? I...I don't want you to be gone when I wake up."

Takumi leans down and kisses him softly on the lips. "I'll be right here the entire time," he says. "For as long as you need me."

He lies down beside Leo, settling close to him so that their chests are rising and falling against each other, and watches Leo watch him through half-lidded eyes.

With a tiny smile, Leo reaches up and touches the long braid hanging loosely over Takumi's shoulder. "Your hair...you used to wear it differently."

"Someone told me once that I looked more mature like this," Takumi says in reply. "Is it working? I honestly can't tell."

Leo's smile widens, just slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching up. It is a blessedly familiar smile, the kind Takumi loves most to feel against his cheek, moving over his skin in a path well-traveled and yet always new in a different way every time.

"I missed you," Leo murmurs, eyelids fluttering. "And then you came."

Takumi puts his hand over Leo's and laces their fingers together. "That's what you do when you love someone."

All is quiet then, but for the sounds of their soft breathing and finally, Leo's eyes drift closed as their hearts beat against each other as one.

  


**Author's Note:**

> this was written and published with minimum editing (which occurred at around 2am,) but i enjoyed it because it's been a while since i managed to actually get something done so. thanks, sad leokumis, for helping me out. the "council" everyone keeps talking about is just sth i made up lol. there's gonna be a sequel but idk when thats happening so. dont hold your breath, but just know that this story isn't quite complete yet. thanks for reading.


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